19 Weeks!

Baby McPhee hit the 19 week mark on Saturday, and celebrated by making mama look (and feel) bigger than ever!  I made it through 17 weeks wearing "normal" pants (one size up from what I wore pre-pregnancy), but when 18 weeks came, I knew it was time to break out the maternity-wear in full force.  There was just one slight problem: I'm too tall for normal maternity pants. I don't know why there aren't more tall maternity pants -- do retailers think only short women get pregnant? -- but the only ones I could find would cost $69.50 at least.  GAP, I love you, but not that much. I made it through the week wearing a combination of dresses, a foldover waist skirt, some maternity capris (anything in a crisis, right? and they turned out kind of cute!) and a pair of pants forced uncomfortably beneath my growing bump.

Saturday came and so did my mom. We were on a mission to make maternity pants!  We sorted through my pre-pregnancy clothes looking for candidates.  We had a good laugh at how much I'd grown already when I attempted to pull on, let alone walk in my pre-P jeans. Apparently my hips aren't what they used to be. We found a few pairs that I could put on that weren't in danger of splitting in two or cutting off all circulation to my legs, and we were off.  I loosely followed this tutorial: http://modestmaven.blogspot.com/2009/11/converted-maternity-pants-tutorial.html (thank you, internet!!!) and we were off!  It was a bit scary cutting into a pair of dress slacks, especially when I couldn't so much as start the zipper (which she recommended you be able to do if you wanted the pants to fit at all!). The waistband came off and ahhh! I could breathe and zip the zipper halfway.  This was encouragement enough.  By the end of the weekend, I had TWO pairs of converted maternity pants and three more pairs ready to be dissected and refitted for under $30, thank you very much!  Isaac asked me at one point "uh, are we going to have to buy you all new pants after this pregnancy?" My response was "yes, probably". I did manage to save two favorite pairs from the scissors, and scored some amazing $10 jeans at the Goodwill that I could almost button over my burgeoning belly, so I'm actually feeling much better about transitioning out of maternity wear someday... although when that will be is anyone's guess -- these things are COMFY!

Anyway, I'll leave you with a couple of photos of the belly now that there's officially something to see, and a pair of my new old pants that cost me nothing but about an hour of time before church yesterday!!

16 week appointment

I meant to post a picture, but then I failed to take one. Sorry! You'll just have to use your imagination a little bit longer! 

We had our 16 week prenatal visit two days ago and I just can’t say enough how much we like the Nurse Midwives at Valley Medical!! They’re fantastic! They’ve answered our questions (and without even a hint of condescension), and even anticipated many of them.  They never rush our appointments, which is huge for me!  Most of them (perhaps all?) are mothers, so they understand the birth process from all aspects.
My big questions going in were 1. Birth classes: when do you take those, and are they necessary?  And 2. I’d read that low magnesium can exacerbate (or even cause!) morning sickness – is there any merit to this?  She said she’d never heard of the magnesium link, but she wanted to research it for me – how cool is that?!  And she anticipated my birth class question and gave us plenty of options as well as her recommendations.
Finally we got down to the fun stuff: hearing the baby!  She had to search a bit as little one was quite active – which was fun as we got to hear the baby moving around in there before she was able to get the heartbeat.  His/her heart was going strong at about 160bpm! She also explained not to be worried if that fluctuates at the visits since babies, like adults, have active times when their heart rate goes up and chill times when the heart rate slows a bit. J So cool to think about, and reassuring!
Next up is our 20 week ultrasound when we get to see baby!!  That’s one scheduling phone call I’m eagerly anticipating!!
In other news, my employer has been amazing, letting me work part time while I’ve been sick.  I decided to try to go full time again next week, to which I was met with a host of “Oh, you must be feeling better” responses.  Nope, not really, but it’s time, and I need some normalcy in my life, and I’m also out of PTO.  I do have good days now, so that is an improvement, but I have no guarantee the bad days will cease before baby comes, so I’m going to attempt to toughen up and tough it out!  Prayers appreciated!

And in much, much, much more exciting news: Isaac has officially been offered (and accepted) a position at CBRE (CB Richard Ellis).  They’re a huge real estate company (just look around, you’ll start to see their signs everywhere).  He’ll be in their Valuation and Advisory Program, which means a loooot of work over the next 30 months (the minimum duration of the apprenticeship), then he can become a fully licensed commercial real estate appraiser!  SO EXCITING!!! 

Jellyfishin'

Yesterday we finally got to try out Isaac's new inflatable two-person kayak that I gave him for Christmas!  We headed out to West Seattle and put in on the Sound.  It was low 70s, nary a breeze, and just a few clouds in the sky.  It was amazing!

Getting it ready!

Safety first, right? 

It's ready to go!! 

First sighting! 

 There was no wind to move this beauty!

He's so handsome! 

So cool! Watching ferries cross from West Seattle to Vashon. 

It was the day of the jelly fish for sure!  I definitely had a few nervous moments when we were still trying to figure out the roll and pitch of the kayak! Thankfully I did not end up in the water! We saw a couple dozen of these guys! 

This guy was by far the largest and most fearsome of the group! Its tentacles stretched several feet!

And packing up to head back home! Best part of the inflatable kayak! 

Quick onesie makeover

I'm finally beginning to feel better!  Of course my fingers have been itching for a craft during all my lounging.  Unfortunately, I didn't feel up to going to buy yarn, nor do we know the gender of our little one yet, so I didn't want to get started on too many knitting projects just yet.

I got the perfect opportunity to do some quick, fun crafting when my cousin, Victoria, told us she was in need of newborn onesies for her second little girl, who is due to make her appearance any time now! We had a lovely tea for her last weekend, and it just so happened that I was feeling good the day before!

I had a pack of girly onesies in my gift stash and pulled them out.  The same thing that kept me from gifting them before initially put me off this time.  Two of the onesies had garish, overly girlified "Princess" stamped on them.  Um, no thank you.  Nevermind that I think this little girl will be quite a loved, doted on princess, I just don't go in for cheesy titles on shirts.  I just don't.  Enter my awesome fabric stash!  I am pretty much incapable of throwing away any useable scrap of fabric that's more than 3"x4", so I have a lot of little girly scraps.  I pulled out several, and go to work determining the best compliments to the pink and white onesies.

Next came the fun part - deciding on an applique shape. I spent some time browsing Pinterest (any excuse, right?) and found some cute elephant shapes that seemed easy enough to trace on my screen (yes, you read that right -- I hate to waste perfectly good ink on printing out a silhouette that I can trace or freehand). Next, hmm... how about an oversized bow? I just love little girls in oversized bows!  Knowing that Tori isn't one to put her babes in overly frilly outfits, I decided to freehand the bow onto fabric and sew it onto the onesie.  I had some thought to making it 3D, but decided that for a newborn it was best to keep things simple.  I love the way they turned out and can't wait to get started on some for our little baby Mac when he/she makes an appearance!

16 weeks!

Little one is 16 weeks in the womb today!

We got to hear the heartbeat (strong and steady and fast) at 12.5 weeks, which I meant to post about. It was a really wonderful moment and rather surreal.  We tried to hear Baby at 10.5 weeks, but no dice. The midwife was amazing and told us to come back in two weeks and assured me that as sick as I was, there was no cause for concern that Baby was anything but healthy (and hiding) in there.  At 12.5 weeks we heard the heartbeat almost the same second that the midwife put the doppler on my belly. It was incredible!

I'm down to having really bad days only once or twice a week instead of feeling sick almost constantly every day.  It's a relief, even though it feel like I'm regressing with every bad day, I know it means Baby is healthy and growing like a champ in there.  Isaac has been the model of patience and support throughout this entire process.

It's getting harder to find pants that fit (or at least that fit comfortably), and Baby's pushing out a little bit so that I look perpetually like I've had one too many big meals...which, believe me, is not the case.  I've discovered that big meals trigger morning sickness the next morning. Lame, right?!

My employer continues to be awesome and lets me work 8am-3pm and gives me no grief when I have to leave early for appointments or when I turn a lovely shade of green and need to lie down -- for the next 8-12 hours!  Yep, if I get sick, it sticks with me. There's no one and done for me on the vomit train. Once I'm on it, there's no getting off the ride until the next morning.  But even that's an improvement over the early days when I would be sick (horribly, horribly sick) for days at a time! I'm thankful the vomiting on the hour, every hour, phase seems to be over.

So, not a very exciting post, but it's where we are!  We actually got to use Isaac's Christmas gift (an inflatable kayak) for the first time today (pictures coming soon).  A sure sign I'm feeling better!! We dubbed our inaugural trip the jelly fish hunt. We've never seen so many big, live jelly fish in the Sound in one day! It was rather incredible!